Ascension, May 8 2016
Acts 1.1-11; Psalm 93 (CH4 57); Ephesians 1.15-23; Luke 24.44-53
St Andrew’s Scots Memorial, Jerusalem
The point of Christian faith, like the point of political commitment, is to take us out of ourselves and connect us to a larger purpose.
But we are human, creatures of frail flesh and even frailer spirit. More often than we care to admit to ourselves or to each other, the purpose we connect ourselves to is the wrong purpose; and even when it’s God’s purpose, we get it wrong, we understand it badly.
*
On a late afternoon in spring, a man and a woman are walking home disconsolately, talking themselves through the five stages of grief. A stranger joins them and their conversation. Numbly, they tell him the tale of their dead friend, the one in whom they had such hope, the one they thought would redeem Israel. He was a prophet, driven and dynamic, mighty in word and deed. But then the compromised, collaborationist leadership of their people handed him over the occupying Roman power, which promptly crucified him.
No more prophet. No more hope.
And Jesus of Nazareth says to them, “You still don’t get it, do you?”
Forty days later, he is strolling up the Mount of Olives on his own way home, when the apostles ask him if now is when he will restore the kingdom to Israel.
Jesus sighs and, not for the first time, thinks to himself, “I really need to get some more clued-up followers.”
*
Eastertide gives Luke 50 days in the sun. For seven Sundays or even eight, the Old Testament reading in our lectionary is usurped by the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sequel to his more famous Gospel. In a church that acknowledges the word of God in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the supreme rule of faith and life, this seems a trifle odd; but there it is.
Luke also determines the shape of Eastertide: 40 days to Ascension, 50 to Pentecost. Of course, as Reformed Christians who threw out the Western Catholic baby with the late-medieval bathwater, we mess up his timetable. Ascension Thursday becomes Ascension Sunday: 43 days.
It could be worse. In the Orthodox traditions of the East, Ascension is celebrated with an all-night vigil, which for those of us who need our sleep is worse than getting up for a 5 o’clock walk through a checkpoint. On the other hand, in their observance of Ascension our Eastern sisters and brothers do include Old Testament readings.
*
These prophetic texts from Isaiah and Zechariah are mostly straightforward. They look to a day or days to come when the Lord will bring in his salvation, and in different ways they anticipate the Ascension story.
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2.3)
Or again:
“On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east… On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem… And the Lord will become king over all the earth…” (Zechariah 14.4, 8f)
*
But, as always with scripture, there are bits that are more problematic. Thus, Zechariah says:
“See, a day is coming for the Lord… I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses looted and the women raped; half the city shall go into exile… Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle.” (Zechariah 14.1-3)
Here we need to make a distinction that scripture does not make.
For our Bibles, the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, and everything that happens may be ascribed to God.
We need to say, not quite. God is the creator of heaven and earth, but God not the author of sin. Sinning is something we do on our own account. God allows us to take cities, loot houses, and rape women but does not do that. God allows us to crucify his only beloved Son but does not do that. God is the only one in the class who can say to the teacher, “Please, Miss, it wasn’t me, it was them.”
We are guilty of our sins, while the good we do we can claim no credit for, because that is God’s doing in us; and if that seems to us monstrously unfair, it is because we are still spiritually in kindergarten.
*
How does God put right what we do wrong? How does God redeem Israel and save the nations? How does God restore the kingdom? The writers of our New Testament give us a single answer, but each in his own way.
Luke speaks of a new covenant between God and humanity, a new deal cut in the blood of Jesus freely poured out for us – an act of grace, mercy and liberation creating a new covenant community offering salvation to all.
This is, to be sure, a renewed covenant. Luke most likely is a gentile follower, but time and again he insists that in and through the coming of Jesus the ancient purposes of God are fulfilled and enlarged. The new covenant of which Luke speaks is none other than the new covenant foretold by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
This is how God puts right what we have put wrong. Not by taking cities, looting houses, raping women, or killing enemies; but subtly and subversively. In and through a young Jewish prophet, filled with the power of the Spirit, who goes about doing good, healing the sick and all who are oppressed by demons, telling parables and interpreting the law, hanged on a tree but raised from the dead. In and through the community Jesus creates, filled also with power when the Spirit comes upon us, and seeking however ineptly to walk in his way.
We should not, to be sure, claim to be the exclusive community of salvation, especially not in a city of three faiths. The Spirit blows where she chooses, and no one knows where she comes from or goes. The Spirit is an upstart and an anarchist, overturning all our easy categories and conventions. Ours are not the only hearts God circumcises. Ours are not the only eyes God enlightens. There is grace enough to go around. For sinners great and small, there is grace abounding.
*
Luke tells us that Jesus withdrew from the eleven and their companions, that a cloud took him out of their sight. It is easy to misunderstand: to think that Jesus has gone away, that Jesus has abandoned us, that while we struggle through a vale of tears, he is sitting by a heavenly poolside, sipping a Tequila Sunrise. Nothing could be more wrong.
The risen Christ goes away from the there and then into the everywhere and always. He ascends from the limitations of time and space of first-century Palestine so that he can be with us, as Matthew puts it, until the end of the age. He is always here and always now, walking with us through the troubles of this world.
We do not follow an absent Messiah, an absentee king, missing after action. We hear his voice in the words of scripture and, just occasionally, in the sermons preached about it. We touch his hands and side in the Lord’s supper, when Sunday by Sunday he invites us to the feast that anticipates his kingdom. We find ourselves before him whenever half-heartedly we try to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, break the bonds of injustice, or set the prisoners free. In word and sacrament, and in our own inadequate deeds of mercy, he is really present. He does not leave us to our own devices. We are not alone.
This, and this only, is why we can respond with growing confidence to the words of St Paul as interpreted by Eugene Peterson:
“Love from the centre of who you are, don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil, hold on for dear life to good. Don’t hit back, discover beauty in everyone. Bless your enemies. Don’t burn out, keep yourselves fuelled and aflame.” (Romans 12, selected verses)
But more about the tongues of fire next time.
Hymns
Lift up your hearts, believers! This is the holy day (CH4 446)
The Lord doth reign, and clothed is he with majesty most bright (Psalm 93, CH4 57)
Out of sight, the Lord has gone (CH4 444)
Alleluia! Sing to Jesus! (CH4 445)
Blessing and honour and glory and power (CH4 441)
Sources
Michael J Gorman, The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the Church (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014)
Eugene H Peterson, The Message//Remix (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2003)